The crux of the criticism of Bush's fundraising for MJBI was not a sense that Messianic Judaism threatens Judaism's survival, but rather that Jews find the proselytizing and the claims of Jewish spiritual "blindness" offensive. That's a view shared by Jews of the many stripes identified in the Pew survey, ranging from Orthodox to secular.

[P]eople who suspect conspiracies aren’t really skeptics. Like the rest of us, they’re selective doubters. They favor a worldview, which they uncritically defend. But their worldview isn’t about God, values, freedom, or equality. It’s about the omnipotence of elites.

Ben Radford looks at the history of belief in "ley lines," which was a new thing to me, supposed "energy" connections between important landmarks and and geological features.

David Sessions at Patrol watches the backlash at Alec Baldwin for recent homophobic slurs, and says the reaction from the left is dangerously overblown:

. . . this is a devastating mentality for the left to embrace. I left behind the religious conservatism I grew up with partly because I saw, over the first 20 years or so of my life, the self-defeating absurdity of movement orthodoxies and the obsession with moral shibboleths.

Plan to give taxpayer funds to the Child Evangelism Fellowship in Washington state is nixed.

This is kind of odd. Wall Street Journal hosts a series of "experts" to address the question, "What is the biggest misconception people have about alternative medicine?" One such "expert" is David Foster, an expert because he produced the show House. Anyway, his answer:

In this question, I am not sure to whom “people” refers. If “people” refers to doctors, then I would say the biggest misconception is that alternative medicine is this big, dangerous enterprise that patients need to be protected from. If “people” refers to patients, then I would say the biggest misconception is that alternative medicine is this big, benevolent enterprise that can only help them.

Dr. John Soto gets it right (who, weirdly, was an adviser on House...what is it with that?):

More helpful, I think, is viewing alternative medicine as “proto-medicine,” i.e. as techniques that may someday be adopted into conventional medicine if well-conducted clinical trials show a favorable ratio of benefit to harm.

Quote of the Day

Paul Ryan says poverty is not cured by help from the state, but "spiritual redemption: That’s what saves people." Jonathan Chait quips:

Comments:

#1 Randy (Guest) on Thursday November 21, 2013 at 8:43pm

David Sessions is wrong, and you have to wonder why he’s so vehement about it. I don’t know him, but it’s pretty weird.

Words do mean something. If you pose as someone’s friend, brag that you’re their friend, donate to their causes (perhaps as cover) and then when you’re not censoring yourself you use a key facet of their biology to insult someone else, you’re not much of a friend; you’re kind of a shit. Why should gay people (or anyone) help someone gay-wash themselves?

This isn’t about a momentary lapse of judgment. This isn’t about liberty. It’s about special treatment. It’s about a long string of behaviors from Alec that nobody else would be permitted to get away with. They would be raked over the coals for their obvious homophobia (whatever its origin) and so should Alec.

Anything less is hypocrisy.

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Paul Fidalgo has been communications director of the Center for Inquiry since 2012. He holds a master’s degree in political management from George Washington University, and has worked previously for FairVote: The Center for Voting and Democracy and the Secular Coalition for America. Paul is also an actor and musician whose work includes five years performing with the American Shakespeare Center. He lives in Maine with his wife and kids. His blog at the Patheos network is iMortal, and he tweets at @paulfidalgo.